Suzette Martinez Standring: Summer ritual of remembrance

Thursday

Jul 24, 2008 at 12:01 AMJul 24, 2008 at 3:35 AM

I stepped up to the table and placed my order, “I’ll take Eternal Life.” The calligrapher nodded and gracefully brushed the Chinese symbols onto my paper lantern. “Peace” and “Love” were other possibilities, but there was a run on “Eternal Life” as I stood in line to partake of a yearly ritual.

Suzette Martinez Standring

I stepped up to the table and placed my order, “I’ll take Eternal Life.” The calligrapher nodded and gracefully brushed the Chinese symbols onto my paper lantern. “Peace” and “Love” were other possibilities, but there was a run on “Eternal Life” as I stood in line to partake of a yearly ritual.

The Lantern Festival at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Mass., draws hundreds of people annually who decorate individual paper shades for square wooden lanterns that are set with a small candle in the center.

At sunset, the lighted lanterns are set afloat on Lake Hibiscus, symbolically carrying the hopes, dreams, memories and memorials of their senders under the full moon.

The origin of the lantern festival is traced to China, but the holiday is celebrated among other Asian cultures. Such ceremonies are based on different beliefs. Colorful lighted globes symbolize the new moon and new beginnings on the Chinese lunar calendar. In Buddhist tradition, followers believe the golden and benevolent aura of the Buddha, as symbolized by lanterns, can dispel inner darkness. Still other festivals originated from birthday celebrations of Tianguan, the Taoist god of good fortune.

But now in mid-summer at the circa-1848 Victorian memorial park near Boston, the ritual was about remembrance. Names of loved ones were inscribed on lantern shades, poetic messages were written and children drew in designs with crayons and colored markers.

The afterlife was on my mind as I penned the names of my husband’s recently deceased parents, “Norman and Margaret, together at last” and the name of a beloved friend and father figure, “George T. Davis.”

There was a moment when I wasn’t sure what I should say as a send-off. Should I write wishes for the future or offer prayers for the present or simply honor in memory those now passed?

And so I wrote these verses from Romans 8:26-27:

“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.”

It means that through the spirit, God knows exactly what's in our hearts and what we need most though we may lack the ability to express ourselves. It tells me to trust that God’s will holds my wellbeing as his highest priority.

Twilight came and folks carried their small, lighted lanterns toward Hibiscus Lake. Setting mine down, I gently pushed it toward open water. Scores of wood and paper lights launched from the grassy shores, though some remained stuck at the water’s edge.

Happily, my lantern broke way and with the name, “George T. Davis,” facing me, the lantern floated toward the middle of the pond, lightly turning circles in the water.

It was so George, breaking away from the pack and blazing his own trail with great spirit and good humor. Then Margaret and Norman’s side of the lantern came into view as if they were dancing together on the water’s surface.

The fading light enhanced a watery field of shimmering spirits floating past. A line of geese swam toward the lanterns, sending soft ripples that boosted straggler ships onward. The sky was blue and pink and soon my lantern would move beyond my reach to read it.

But right before it was swallowed up within a fleet of hand-colored paper shades, I made out the final message I had written on its last available side:

“For wishes yet unknown, grant us the desire of our hearts.”

And God knows best what is most delightful.

My drive home was under the most enormous orange moon.

E-mail Suzette Standring at suzmar@comcast.net or visit http://www.readsuzette.com She is the author of “The Art of Column Writing” and teaches writing workshops nationally.

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